Can you blame the Bird-Flu infected Boy?

According to a report in The Straits Time, the parents of a three-year-old Indonesian boy infected with bird flu, have defied hospital orders that he stay in isolation and taken him home.
The boy from Tangerang, a satellite city west of the capital Jakarta, stayed in hospital for just half a day last Saturday, said Sardikin Giriputro, [...]

More Bird-Flu in Indonesia!

Yet another Bird-Flu victim in Indoneisa
Now a 9 years old girl called Widya Rahmadai  is hospitalised as a Bird-Flu patient!
(we bloggers love to get the names of the victims - it makes us feel like we are real providers of news !)
Via ANTARA News:
A patient of the Sagulung regional general hospital in Batam has been referred to [...]

Bird-Flu, a virus with Intelligence?

Yet another Indonesian Child infected with Bird-Flu.
There it is again. 
That drip drip of this slow motion pandemic.
The bestseller Science Fiction novel Dune, by Frank Herbert, features a personal shield that can protect a warrior against all weapons.
There is one weakness in that shield however.
If a weapon is wielded very slowly, it can get past the shield and [...]

Apologies to Professor Kilian for the UN Bird-Flu story.

Apologies to Crof the Prof for the UN Bird-Flu story. 
I apologize to Professor Kilian, if my comments in my last post, “Political Correctness from the UN Bird-Flu Boss?” were in any way taken as suggesting the “bombing of Indonesia”.
I have spent may years in Indonesia and around that region and love all of it.
Well, almost all of it.
There have been some very radical [...]

Political Correctness from the UN Bird-Flu Boss?

In an example of political correctness gone mad, the UN’s top official on bird flu has praised heightened levels of transparency in Asian countries over cases of the disease!
“To have information promptly is the ultimate goal,” said David Nabarro, the UN’s senior system coordinator for avian and human influenza.”We believe that just about every country is giving us that [...]

Flu Pandemic in Slow Motion

It is as if we are watching a pandemic in slow motion.
What we have right now is not the “normal viral Pandemic mode”, resulting in a large number of human fatalities, during a limited period of time.
Instead, there has been a regular drip drip of people dying of the virus almost every week, over the last 4 years or so.
Every [...]

Pandemic Flu, the True Cost of Cheap Chicken

So we all have a choice.
Keep buying “cheap” factory farmed chickens, turkeys and other un-naturally grown animals (a la Bernard Matthews) and we will get a constant flow of killer viruses coming to get us.

  Bernard Matthews
Or we could buy our food from small farm holdings, using the traditional way of farming.
We may pay a tiny bit [...]

Now a 10 year old Girl dies of Bird-Flu in Indonesia.

The Riau province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra seems to be the new Bird-Flu-central in the virus inflicted Indonesia.

Last night (October 20, 2007) a 10 year old girl suspected of having bird flu died at the Arifin Achmad hospital in Riau province.
“She was admitted on Saturday but died less than 12 hours later, at around [...]

H5N1 Virus more virulent in House Sparrows & Starlings than it was in 1997

A study conducted at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, on the effects of the H5N1 avian influenza virus on small land birds, suggests that the virus is often lethal in sparrows but has lesser effects on starlings and pigeons and does not readily spread to other birds of the same species.  
However, the researchers say their [...]

Pandemic flu Warning:Children At-Risk(American Academy Of Pediatrics)

A new report co-authored by the American Academy Of Pediatrics and the Trust for America’s Health issues a stark warning.
Its headline warns in large Bold letters- Pandemic Influenza: Warning, Children At-Risk
The report tells us that children would likely be both prime spreaders and targets of a flu pandemic, but they’re being overlooked in the nation’s preparations [...]

Influenza kills more people than Bird-Flu.

Bird Flu is a scary virus and I hope that we will be able to find ways to protect our selves, when (and if) it starts spreading amongst humans.
But a virus does not have to be scary to be a killer.
The not-very-scary “common” influenza virus kills tens of thousands of people (specially old people) all [...]

‘What would it take for the Bird-Flu to change and start killing us?

‘What would it take for the Bird-Flu to change and start killing us?
Here is yet another team of scientists, who have found that the answer to the above question is “Not a Lot”!
Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University have asked “‘What would it take for the bird flu to change and [...]

Can a Vaccine give you Bird-Flu?

Vaccines are a Billion Dollar global business.
It is obvious therefore, that all kinds of interests, other than just those interested in the health care of the public would get involved in the production, legalization and the distribution of vaccines. 
There are a large number of commercial interests pushing vaccines for viruses that have not even manifested them selves, to [...]

Brits learn from Bernard Matthews Bird-Flu Outbreak?

“Avian influenza lessons learned report published”!
The British Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has today published the lessons learned from the report following the outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in Suffolk in February this year.

You remember, the Bernard Matthews Bird Flu outbreak in his factory farm in Suffolk England.

So I suppose the [...]

Eight Indonesian suspected bird flu patients hospitalised

Eight Indonesian suspected bird flu patients hospitalisedThe Bird-Flu toll seems to keeps growing and growing in Indonesia!May be because of all the criticism of the Indonesian Government for the secrecy and lack of any information related to the progress of the H5N1 virus, today we have an unusual announcement from Indonesia.
The Vietnam News Agency is reporting that Eight [...]

No Bird-Flu in Iran (Also no Homosexuals)

Iran’s Press TV reports from its Tehran-based headquarters, that there is no Bird-Flu in Iran.

Iran’s Veterinary Organization chief says that no acute ‘bird flu’ sample has been registered in Mazandaran, northern Iran, so far.
“Iran has taken serious steps to prevent the bird flu outbreak,” Veterinary Organization chief Mojtaba Norouzi said.
Iran’s vet chief has shed light on [...]

627- The number of the Flu Pandemic Devil

An influential study has identified the key mutation of the H5N1 influenza virus, needed for it’s efficient replication in the upper respiratory tracts of mice as a mammalian model.
A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report the identification of a key trigger for the virus to facilitate its easy transmission from person to person.
Mutation of PB2 amino acid [...]

One (Two?) More Indonesian Dead from Bird-Flu

We can never really be sure of the status of the Bird Flu virus in Indonesia, due to the increasingly draconian suppression of the news related to the spread of the H5N1 virus, in that country.
However, we do have some news related to the Bird-Flu virus from Indonesia today.
We are told that an Indonesian woman suspected of being infected with [...]

Global Super Computer Grid to Fight Bird-Flu

The H5N1 virus transmission to humans has been observed since 1997, but the subtype N1 has been known since at least since 1918.
The N1 and N2 subtypes can evolve into variants under certain conditions as we have seen over the last few years.
The Bird-Flu virus has shown itself to be much more dangerous than we all [...]

Interactive Map of Global Bird-Flu Spread since 2003

Here is another Global Bird-Flu map, this time an Interactive Map from MSNBC.
I had posted this map here a while back.
Worth another look:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12375868

More Indonesian Bird-Flu Censorship revelations?

A story via the Jakarta post, seems to casually reveal another, as yet unannounced Indonesian death, resulting from the H5N1 virus, way back in April of this year.

The story mentions the latest bird-flu victim from Jakarta, the 22 year old named as AR, who had apparently died last week, after suffering from high fever, headaches and respiratory problems.
It took [...]

Global Bird-Flu Outbreak Map since 2003

Via ReliefWeb,
from the WHO, a very interesting visual diary of the global spread of the H5N1 virus, since the year 2003.

Click here:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/LCZN-77LL5Y?OpenDocument&RSS20=25-P
For:
Areas Reporting Confirmed Occurrence of H5N1 Avian Influenza in Poultry and Wild Birds Since 2003 (Status as of 27 Sep 2007)

Indonesia delays Bird-Flu death news

It was only today, that the world learnt about the latest bird-flu death in Indonesia, even though the 21 year old victim identified only by the initials “AR”, died of the killer virus last week.
AFP reports that the victim died on Friday at a hospital in West Jakarta, quoting Ningrum, a doctor from Indonesia’s bird [...]